


The Writing on the Wall

by Mireille



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-04
Updated: 2004-08-04
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8107300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: "Maybe she made herself up, and none of this has happened at all."





	

She thinks maybe she imagined all of it, or maybe she's imagining all of this; she doesn't know. The equations are real, and the walls are real, and the markers in her hand are real, but there isn't anything else she'd be prepared to swear isn't just a product of her imagination. But there isn't any reason to believe that she's really here, that the walls are really walls and not just the rock of a cave. 

She thinks she remembers that the world used to have a lot of walls like this, but then it just had the cave, and either one of them is something she made up in her head, or both of them are. Or maybe she made herself up, and none of this has happened at all. 

Fred likes that thought best of all, because she doesn't know, really, that this scares her that much less than her cave. She has enough to eat here, at least - not that she ever feels like she's had enough, after so very long of always being hungry, but she's not weak and dizzy and her stomach doesn't feel hollow- and some of it's tacos, and she thinks maybe that means that her mind likes her better than it used to, because she never used to imagine tacos, or being warm and dry and clean, or nobody trying to hurt her. 

At least, she doesn't think they're trying to hurt her; they come to her door sometimes and try to get her to come out. She used to hide under the bed until they went away, just in case they came in, but they don't ever come in, just knock on the door and tell her there's food for her, and that they're playing Scrabble in the lobby if she wants to come down. 

She thinks she remembers what Scrabble means, remembers little squares that you can fit together to make words that make sense. She couldn't play it now, because none of the words make sense. But it sounds kind of safe, and so she's stopped diving under the bed when she hears footsteps, just waits for a while before opening the door and bringing in the food. 

She can't quite remember what they look like--she never really looked at any of them, except for Angel, and she *does* remember what he looks like. He saved her from the monsters; she's never going to forget him.

If he came to her door, she would open it, she thinks. If he came to her door, and knocked, and told her there were tacos, or Chinese food, waiting for her outside, she would open it, and he could come in to have dinner with her, she thinks. She could show him her equations, and he could tell her what parts of what she remembers are real and what parts are just things she made up.

Except that as soon as they came to this place, Angel went away again, and he hasn't come back, and Fred's starting to think that she made him up, too. Angel has to be real, though, because he *saved* her, and if he's only a hallucination, then she's still in that cave, and she *can't* be. 

And that's why she draws him on her wall, because the things on the wall are the only things that are real.


End file.
